State of Contact Center Report 2023
Data-backed insights unveil the changing role of contact centers.
In 2022, contact center agents struggled to meet customer expectations. In 2023, contact centers should forge a new identity.
Ozonetel, a leading contact center solution provider, combines data from across 22 million calls to answer the question: is there a need to change contact center strategy today?
Use our findings to understand your customers’ behavior and match up to their evolving expectations.
01
Customer impatience rises
Wait Times that were accepted before will not work anymore! Abandonment Rates have trebled from 2019 to 2022 revealing an increasing impatience amongst callers. Contact centers need to level up and provide faster responses than ever before.
AVERAGE TIME IN QUEUE, 2019
0
s
In 2019, callers spent an average of 79 seconds
waiting for an agent to answer their call
ABANDONMENT RATE, 2019
0
%
In 2019, 12% callers abandoned calls
while waiting in queue
AVERAGE TIME IN QUEUE, 2022
0
s
In 2022, callers spent an average of 56 seconds
waiting for an agent to answer their call
ABANDONMENT RATE, 2022
0
%
In 2022, 34% callers abandoned calls while waiting in queue
For businesses that have heavily invested in their on-premise systems, enabling business continuity, and adding new digital & self-serve channels can be challenging. Learn how Legacy PBX can quickly Add Cloud abilities to their Call Center
02
Agents face higher workloads
In 2022, even as agents spent more time on post-call work, the average pick-up time decreased, indicating that they have less idle time between call. Call volumes rose by 3% indicating higher workloads while average talk time remains the same.
AVERAGE TALK TIMES
0
min
Average talk times—time spent on a contact center conversation—remains same as last year.
AVERAGE WRAP TIMES
0
s
In 2021, agents spent 8 seconds less, on average, on post-call work
AVERAGE PICK-UP TIMES
0
s
In 2022, on average, the duration for which the agent’s phone rings before they answer, has decreased.
AVERAGE TIME IN QUEUE, 2019
0
s
In 2019, callers spent an average of 79 seconds waiting for their call to be answered by a live agent
0
%
ABANDONMENT RATE
12% callers abandoned calls while waiting in queue
AVERAGE TIME IN QUEUE, 2020
0
s
In 2019, callers spent an average of 79 seconds waiting for their call to be answered by a live agent
0
%
ABANDONMENT RATE
12% callers abandoned calls while waiting in queue
Did customer experience change in your vertical industry? To learn more, download our complete report.
03
Voice remains a critical channel
Voice remains a critical channel for support and consultative sales. Post-pandemic, call volumes continue to rise across most sectors despite the availability of several digital channels. Of the 11 verticals we studied, 7 showed an uptick in call volumes this year.
HEALTHCARE SERVICES & DIAGNOSTICS
0
%
Call volumes in this sector rose 58% from Q1 to Q4.
INSURANCE
0
min
Call volumes in this sector rose 35% from Q1 to Q4 and lasted 6 minutes, on average.
NBFC & FINANCIAL SERVICES
0
%
Call volumes in this sector rose 80% from Q1 to Q4.
During the pandemic, eCommerce and food delivery verticals saw an increase in talk times, but did some sectors witness a drop in talk times due to the pressure on agents to close calls faster?
04
Omnichannel becomes vital
While voice continues to be critical, poor performance across contact center KPIs such as average queue time, abandonment rate, and outbound connection (aka pick-up) rates show that contact centers must blend voice + digital in a cohesive omnichannel strategy to improve performance, enhance customer satisfaction, and deliver higher lifetime value to customers.
AVERAGE QUEUE TIMES
0
s
In 2021, callers spent an average of 44.6
seconds in call queues.
CONNECTION RATES, 2021
0
%
In 2021, 46% of all outbound calls were
answered by a customer or prospect.
AVERAGE QUEUE TIMES
0
s
In 2022, callers spent an average of
56 seconds in call queues
CONNECTION RATES, 2022
0
%
In 2022, only 39% of all outbound calls were
answered by a customer or prospect.
Call Center Performance 2019 to 2022
The study compared contact center performance across the same sectors for four consecutive years. Here is what we found:
It’s time for a new kind of contact center!
Contact centers that can meet these growing customer expectations in an efficient, scalable manner will differ from others in four critical ways:
Agile
Contact centers need to be built upon technology platforms that can rapidly adapt to change.
Integrated
Integrate your contact center solution with other business tools to automate workflows and unify the customer journey.
Omnichannel
Contact centers need to offer customers multiple touchpoints and ensure consistent, personalized responses across channels.
Data rich
Contact centers need to capture and tap the huge reserves of customer and conversation data to enable a bigger business impact.
The Way Forward
Contact centers will play a key role in humanizing brands, building customer loyalty, referrals and driving customer lifetime value. The key focus will be to:
- Meet customers where and how they want
- Double down on personalization
- Be proactive.
- Accelerate responsiveness
Want deeper insights on
each CX metric?
Learn how your contact center
compares with your peers.
Modernize today with Ozonetel
Omnichannel routing, AI capabilities, and Open APIs can change the game for your contact center, learn how Ozonetel’s contact center solution can meet your CX needs.
Want to know what highly responsive customer support looks like?
Responsive high-touch customer support, in spite of spiking call volumes, doesn’t have to be complicated. Ecommerce businesses set the benchmark for the customer service levels through integrated, responsive call centers. Learn how an eCommerce startup connects 95% of its calls to a live agent in under 10 seconds, even as it scaled its operations from 5 to 500 agents.
Ready to modernize? Book a 1:1 Demo.
Omnichannel routing, AI capabilities, and Open APIs can change the game for your call center. Ozonetel gives you the personalized support, flexibility & features that growing businesses & enterprises need to make the changes without changing too much! See it in action!
